The Naked Gospel

Ok, here it is. I posted on here that I would soon be blogging on this book i read called The Naked Gospel by Andrew Farley. For starters I would like to just point out that sometimes books have a way of talking to me right where God has been talking to me already. It’s sometimes like God already knew I was going to read a certain book and everything He had been showing me is right in that book. This one is no exception. I never agree with all that a book says and this one is no exception but because this is not a “debate” but more of a “book review” i am just going to state the facts of what this guy is saying and why I almost fully agree with him.

The main premise of the book is to point out what the gospel and what it isn’t. First we must point out what it is. What is the good news (gospel). Well it’s pretty simple. Jesus+nothing=the gospel. This thought has been going around my head for a few years at least and is the main reason I accepted Jesus in the first place. I realized that I was a sinner and had no hope whatsoever of pleasing God now or anytime in the future. The good news was that I didn’t have to do good to please God and that He understood this. Right now many people may be like *gasp* “what do you mean you don’t need to please God?”. I don’t need to please God because someone already did it. If we are honest with ourselves then we will have to admit that without Christ we will never please the God of the bible.

After we point out that the gospel=Jesus+nothing then we can move on, I believe, to the next point in life. IN CHRIST. Thats what we are if we know Him. We are no longer our own. strangely enough we aren’t even ourselves anymore (spiritually that is). There are many good points in this book about how we are not our own and I wont quote the book because I want to incite people to read it. I will however point out some scriptural points that are hit in the book which i have seen for a long time and that some people don’t want to admit/consider if they are in Christ.

The first point is “THEREFORE IF ANY MAN BE IN CHRIST”. Ask yourself if you are in Christ. If the answer is yes then we can move on. “HE IS A NEW CREATION”. You are a NEW creation in Christ Jesus. You are not “you” anymore spiritually. That is soooo awesome for one big reason. That reason is that we are poor in spirit. We are continually wicked. But, IN CHRIST, we are NEW.

WOW

That is just too amazing and we could stop there butIi don’t think it is enough unfortunately. Many will say “yeah but but but we are still sinners”. Are we? I’m not. the NT doesn’t call people who know Christ sinners. The NT calls them saints. So, you might ask, why do we sin. This one bothered me too and i never could grasp it except that there was still a part of me called “sin nature” that wanted to do sinful things. But a good point is brought forth in this book that i read a million times and mostly agreed with but just now kind of got it. It is not ME that does the sinning. If you are reading this and you know Christ then you know how much you despise sin and it grieves you when you sin because you probably feel like you “let God down”. If you don’t way then they may be a good or a bad thing. Good if you accept that you are accepted in Christ. Bad if you think that God is “OK” with sin. But, that is not my point. The point to this is that we are not our sin. Paul says “the things I want to do I don’t do and the things I don’t want to do those are the things I do therefore it is no longer ME that does them but SIN that dwells in ME”. Strangely enough I have been pointing this out to people and they just don’t want to accept it. They want the sin to be a part of them because they think that if they own up to it then they can control it and, I believe, also take responsibility when they do good things to. But contrary to popular belief it is not us that does the good things. “I am crucified with Christ nevertheless I LIVE yet NOT I but CHRIST lives in me and the life that I now live in the flesh I live by the FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD”. My faith is not sufficient to live for God. I live by CHRISTS FAITH. This life is not our own we were bought with a price. We are now Christs and though there is this “sin” that dwells in us it is NOT US.

Another point in the book which I may or may not fully agree with is that a lot of people live in the gospels as kind of a “rule book” of sorts. I agree that this can be bad. I think it’s is better to see the gospels as showing us how much we cannot make it to God and how Christ IS the only way. There is a lot of emphasis on works and righteousness in the gospels. Why is that? Well this part I agree with Farley on. Jesus is talking to Jews under the law and IS in fact a Jew under the law Himself. But Jesus went to some extremes that we would never dare to seriously teach in “church” these days. Jesus said that if your eye offends you to pluck it out. Jesus also tells us that if our hands offend us that we should but it off. Now no one in their right mind would teach this would they? But when Jesus says the the Jews should have tithed and looked out for justice and the other good things of God as well they say that Jesus was saying we must tithe. Just saying that Jesus had an audience in the gospels that we don’t after His death and resurrection. And, this is another point that the author makes. We are not saints of the Christ on the cross. Forgiveness for the saints IS OVER. As Jesus said IT IS FINISHED. So what do we live in now? We live in the new life of the resurrection of Jesus the Christ. We have NO NEED for forgiveness from God anymore. Now it is easy for people to say “well yeah ultimately but you must confess your sins to stay right with God”. Is Jesus ever not right with God? Of course not and “the life I now live in the flesh I live but THE FAITH OF THE SON OF GOD”.

There are so many more points in this book but I don’t want to ruin it for you. this was just a short review and I hope it is sufficient enough to pique your interest to check it out.

My point (even if it wasn’t the authors so much) is that you are free in Christ. Free from guilt. Free from rules. Free from religion. You don’t have to play that role of “good christian” anymore. Is that saying we just go out and sin because we are free. “Certainly not” as paul would say. We are free to choose Christ. When we choose Christ we will not sin. Sin is NOT “just who I am”. Christs is who we are.